Ah, time to do a post I think. Here’s a collection of things I’ve been looking at this month:

Superb ambient Spot The Difference game. I did this in about 30 minutes, without cheating once! Give it a go.

Next time Brighton and Hove Council do something to get on your nerves just let them know about this story: Brighton and Hove City Council spent nearly £60,000 on mineral water in just a year.

A game! Run your dinosaur away from the exploding volcano using the cursor keys in Dino Run!

Charlie Brooker on Battlestar Gallactica. Probably in my top 5 shows last year.

Want to know how Alan Moore writes a comic script? Well it’s very detailed. Read his full script to Batman: Killing Joke here.

Interview with Ice-T, from The Guardian.

Aphex Twin and others who put images actually into their songs. Bit technical but clever though.

Billy Bragg on A Different Strand of Socialism, from The Guardian.

Looking at The Wire and Modern American Urban Areas. Nice video of this discussion.

Mark Steel’s article on an anti-war protest which wasn’t printed in The Independent because of their lawyers.

And finally some great sound effects. This should follow all my jokes: Instant Rimshot. And this whenever someone makes a mistake: Sad Trombone.

Bit of a news round-up today. Here are some of the stories I’ve bookmarked recently:

This article about North Korea is maybe slightly biased? It’s opener of, “In a cold sweat, I was led away by the jackbooted and armed North Korean border guards to a bleak side room” is a fair indication of how the rest of the article goes. Fair and balanced news reporting from The Sun as usual.

For some reason I like this story about a Hypnotist Thief from the BBC.

The Pen Spinning Tournament in Japan. Check out the videos by clicking on the pictures.

Big Business and the NHS from The Guardian. “No minister can now discuss the NHS without mentioning “new providers” or “alternative providers”, which is their code for private companies, or “choice” and “reform”, which means privatisation.”

Also at The Guardian (yes, I do read other papers) is a look on why people hate Heather Mills. I’m a fan of hers which makes me quite unpopular as to most people she’s on par with Myra Hindley.

I have some bad news for any of you who went to Margate on their holidays as a child. The Scenic Railway in Dreamland, Margate, has been burned down. The site lost it’s Big Wheel many years ago and has slowly been stripped back so that almost just the Scenic Railway rollercoater was left. I still think was the scariest rollercoaster in Britain, mainly due to the fact is was all pretty much wooden and saw it’s fair share of fatalities over the years. It was Grade II listed and it was only a matter of time before somebody put a match to it. The property there will be worthy a few quid now, probably. Best keep an eye on who profits out of this.

Live Web Cam of the peregrine falcons at the top of Sussex Heights.

And finally a video. I’m not very good with heights and this walk along an abandonded ridge way defies belief.

No, not the current activity that many people on the Millmead Estate are doing. It’s a new film being shown on Channel Four tonight. I come from around there so I’m looking forward to seeing how they handle this in Margate:

“Pharaoh has found the perfect solution for the Promised Land. All the unwanted elements of society – asylum seekers and economic refugees, the long term unemployed, sexual deviants, substance abusers, petty criminals and ethnic minorities – are forced to live in Dreamland, a shanty town built on the site of a disused funfair.”

Not a work of fiction then.

I tried to get a job at Dreamland when I was 15 but had no luck, they weren’t that desperate. Luckily the Palace Pier had me when I came to Brighton so I could finally realise my ambition of being a true-to-life Carnie.

Today’s game is Dice Wars. It’s like a mini version of Risk where you have to roll higher than the territory you’re attacking. Good quick fun!

Today’s ‘everybody is stupid’ moment goes to the news that Camelot are withdrawing a scratch card game as it’s too confusing. Yes, it uses minus numbers to show cold temperatures and working out if you were colder or hotter proved a bit too much for some people.

Today’s bet was another of my crazy longshots. It’s a bet that Croatia don’t qualify from Euro 2008. They are currently top of the table with only two games to play but if Russia win both of their matches, Croatia lose against Macedonia and England beat Croatia next Wednesday then they don’t go through to the finals. It’s a long shot and it wasn’t even available at the normal betting sites. Therefore I took my first shot at using BetFair which is a totally different kind of betting site, called a betting exchange. Here you can place bets ‘against’ results as well and you can choose your odds from a selection. It’s not as complicated as it sounds. For a £25 stake (which was free with the offer I had) I stand to win over £600. Fingers crossed!

Today’s annoyance is Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, insisting that the War On Iraq has not increased the threat of terrorism. I feel so confident which such free thinkers in charge of the country.

Today’s mix tape comes from DJ Rocha with his Made Inn Radio Show mp3 mix - sorry about the RapidShare link. It’s a light deep tech-house mix with nothing too underground or experimental.

Today’s ha! comes from John Scalzi who reports back from the new Creation Museum somewhere in the US. “Every single thing on display in the Creation Museum is either caused by or a consequence of exactly three things: 1. The six-day creation; 2. Adam eating from the tree of life; 3. Noah’s flood.”

I’m thinking of a bike ride to Christ’s Hospital (near Horsham) from Hove using the Down’s Link path. It’s about 23 miles there on a very flat cycle path. Unfortunately there’s no alternative cycle path home. You could cheat and get the train I suppose. Testing embeddable Google Maps:

*No, it’s not playing ball. It’s showing the USA.

Here’s a handy PDF guide to the whole route from Shoreham to Guildford. And here’s some more guides to bike rides in Sussex.

Hopefully the new Cycle Path from Brighton Seafront to The South Downs will be completed soon. The path should lead up The Drive to Hove Park and then up to Blatchington Mill and beyond. Please let me know if the plans are online as I can’t find them anywhere.

And once you’ve cycled your belly away why not replace it with the ingenious Beer Belly Beverage Holder. This will be all the rage next summer I promise you.

Oh, and if you’re a fan of Stephen Fry then why not check out his new blog, or blessays as he calls them.

Been a real busy month at King Mansions with some great web projects coming out the door this week.

Here are a few of the things I have been reading and looking at during the month of August.

Easy to follow recipe for Bhindi Gosht. Great Pakistani Okra & Lamb Curry from scratch. You can get half of those ingredients in a packet of Karahi Gosht Masala spice blend available from your local world food outlet.

Short Movie (10 mins) called Flesh which juxtaposes a vision of a pornographic American society with the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks. This is NSFW.

“Over the past several months The Nation has interviewed fifty combat veterans of the Iraq War from around the United States in an effort to investigate the effects of the four-year-old occupation on average Iraqi civilians. These combat veterans, some of whom bear deep emotional and physical scars, and many of whom have come to oppose the occupation, gave vivid, on-the-record accounts. They described a brutal side of the war rarely seen on television screens or chronicled in newspaper accounts.” Superb article in The Nation.

Motorcycle News magazine need to check which ads go with which stories, as can be seen here.

How many times can Superman give his secret identity away without anybody remembering? Lots.

Ooh! Another new episode of Tribe tonight. Read interviews with the presenter Bruce Parry and some of his crew.

This morning I saw that The Guardian has redesigned it’s website.

Although there was nothing wrong with the old style I do like this new redesign. The home page has been broken down into specific sections making it easier to access the items of news you want whilst still keeping a lot of white space so it doesn’t feel cluttered. It’s all done with CSS positioning and the markup is very clean but I found the load time quite high, probably due to the 20 or so scripts it loads.

Anyway, it’s an improvement.

My business website is getting a makeover too. I’ll be launching it this Saturday.

You’ve got to hand it to Channel 4, another Celebrity Big Brother makes the front page news, is mentioned in an early day motion in the Houses of Parliament and has effigies of the shows producers burnt in a province of India. Looks like the only winners will be Channel 4 themselves and me (who put £5 on Shilpa to win at 5-to-1 last week, Ladbrokes link to your right if you still fancy a flutter).

If you listened to the media you’d think that Jade Goody, Jo O’Meara and Danielle Lloyd were going to set fire to a few mosques when they’re released. Personally I think they’re just a collection of three uneducated ‘celebrities’ who, through their lack of cultural understanding, have joined forces and have started to pick on somebody they don’t like. If there was an attractive Polish film star I’m sure those three would be acting the same. The laugh is on them as on a show like this you can see their careers slipping away in front of your eyes while they remain blissfully unaware, stirring their cauldron. Not that I’ve actually watched any of this as I’ve only seen around 10 minutes of the show (honest), and then just to catch the lovely Cleo Rocos who I probably had my first ever crush on.

The media saturation is so overwhelming yet the voices you hear are generally 90% loud and reactionary. The lack of clarity of thought is the only thing I’m worried about lurking behind the doors of British houses, not a dark underbelly of racism. Now I even turn off the radio if they’re discussing the matter. Same for BBC online news. Read Germaine Greer’s refreshing take on the ‘controversy’. I wonder what would happen if the 22,000 people who complained got off their arses and actually did something about racism in their area? Now that should make the news.

A little bird tells me the next eviction vote is between Jade Goody and Shilpa Shetty. Is this a ballot on racism in the UK? If the furore can last till the end of the series I think I’ll win my bet on Shilpa but people are gonna get bored of the news story very soon. I only hoping Shilpa can win this series before the enevitable backlash of balanced thought prevails and the cover of Heat Magazine with Jade saying “I’m not a racist, it was just the way the show was edited,” appears.

Enough of that rubbish. Here’s when Brighton’s West Pier burnt down, speeded up.

Goats on trees.

Every Extra Extend. Brilliant music shoot-em-up by the Japanese maker of Rez.

Video of Market Street in San Francisco filmed in 1905, before the big quake.

Newsreel video of the Hindenburg blowing up.

Vidmeter. Shows you a list of the most watched videos on the net.

I’ve been so busy since my last post working on a couple of amazing looking websites so here’s a week’s worth of posts in one big go.

The new Die Hard 4 teaser trailer:

The new man at Upton Park, Alan Curbishley. I think we’ll put 3 past Man Utd on Sunday.

He-Man sings 4 Non Blondes. A very messed up YouTube video featuring a camp He-Man singing a dance version of What’s Going On. I can’t get this out of my head now.

30 Essential Pieces Of Free Software for Windows. Superb collection of links to applications that will enhance your PC experience.

Boycott Christmas. Cartoons from the Christmas Resistance Movement.

The international contest of logos, trademarks and corporate identity Identity: Best of The Best 2006. Superb graphic design.

Look around Paisley Park. Take a 360 degree look around Prince’s home.

The Surrey Comet. Nothing special about this article entitled “Marksman called in to kill Kingston’s pigeons” but check out the comments below. Funniest thing I’ve seen this week.

Hot UK Deals. Amazing list of the latest cheap and free things to get online.

If you’re one of the lucky people to own a Nintendo Wii and have Orange Broadband, formerly Wanadoo, with a Livebox and have had problems getting online using Nintendo Wi-Fi then these tips may help.

First, you have to log on to your Livebox admin control panel using your PC. You can do this by using this URL in your internet brower: http://configuration.adsl/index2.html
When promted for your username and password use ‘admin’ and ‘admin’ if you can’t remember ever changing it before. Make a note of your Livebox name. Mine is WANADOO-B7E8.

Now go to Security -> Firewall and turn the setting to Low (disabled) and press ’submit’. As long as you have a firewall on your PC then it’ll still be safe.

UPDATE: I no longer think you need to do this last step. The default MEDIUM position should be fine.

Then go to Configuration -> Advanced -> Wireless and make sure your setting is ‘WEP security only’. ‘WEP and WPA’ may also work but unless you’re running a WPA encrytped device it’s unnecessary.

Now go to Security -> WEP Connection and make a note of your WEP Security Key. Keep the letter in CAPS as they wont work otherwise. It should be 26 characters long.

Turn on your Wii and go to the Wii Options (bottom left) then select ‘Wii Settings’. Now select ‘Internet’ and then ‘Connection Settings’. Select ‘Connection 1′ and then ‘Wireless Connection’.

Select ‘Search for an Access Point’. The Wii Now looks around for all the signals it can find. Press ‘OK’ and choose the one that matches the Livebox name we wrote down earlier. Move your Wii pointer over the password area and using the virtual Wii keyboard type in your WEP Security Key you found earlier. Press CAPS to make it easier, the number is in Hex so all the characters will be from 0 to 9 or A to F, no ‘I’s or ‘O’s please. *Do next step before anything else.

Go to your actual Livebox itself and look for two little black buttons in a small panel at the back. Press ‘1′, the one on the left. You now have 10 minutes in which to connect your Wii.

Back at the Wii hit ‘Yes’, then ‘OK’, then ‘OK’, then ‘OK’ again. The Wii will now test the connection. Hopefully after 30 seconds you’ll get a ‘The connection test was successful’ message. Well done!

You can now decide whether to perfom a Wii system update, I’d select ‘Yes’ if I were you. The Wii will then spend the next few minutes downloading the latest firmware. Now if you ever use a Wii service that needs the use of the Internet it will automatically connect. There’s no need to ever change any wi-fi settings again!

* Note, this site is not responsible for your Wii if anything were to go wrong with it by following the instructions here.

So, I hope that was of use to people out there. I’ve probably saved you a few hours of frustration or calls to Nintendo or Orange so feel free to send me a bit of cash using this nice little PayPal donate button here if you’re feeling generous or browse the online game stores featured above. Thanks! And have fun!